GOOGLE EXPANDS: $200 Million Investment In Iowa

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

More jobs are on the way to western Iowa. Friday afternoon Google announced another $200 million investment in the state. It comes on the heels of an announcement the day before, about a $75 million investment in an Iowa wind farm.

This summer, Google announced an expansion to its Council Bluffs Data Center.

“I said in that time I would hope to see Google expand more, little did I know it would be so quick,” joked Iowa Governor Terry Branstad.

Now, the company plans to nearly double the size of that addition.

“This is a big deal for us not only because we`re expanding, but we pushed past a significant milestone and now we are investing more than a billion, over $1.1 billion in Iowa,” said Google Data Center Operations Manager Chris Russell.

It`s also a big deal for the state. The governor said, “This is company that`s got a great worldwide reputation. And for Google to make 1, 2, 3, 4, investments in Iowa in this short period of time I think it says a lot of what we can be really proud of in our state as well.”

Officials said this expansion alone will bring dozens more jobs during the construction phase as well as after completion, although they aren’t sure on an exact number yet, because they said they are working on building the facility first.

Officials says when looking at expansion, they had a few states in mind, but Iowa topped the list because of the availability of wind energy, contractors, and quality employees. They also had several reasons to add onto an existing center, rather than build another facility, including the fact it was easier, and more cost and time effective.